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8:30 AM EST, Tuesday, May 8: "Whatever I do makes money. Whatever I don't do makes money. How long will this last? Another day? Another month? Another year?" This is my best hedge fund manager on the phone yesterday evening, sounding genuinely perplexed. Fortunately he buys value, not momentum. And he doesn't buy on margin. Please...

+ If you buy, don't borrow. When this turns, nothing will put you into the poor house faster than buying on margin.

+ Don't chase whims, tips and stuff you hear on CNBC or read in the financial press or this column. Research your own stuff. I bet there are many people who like Philips. See below. But it seems dicey to me, despite some great products and my son's willingness to spend my money on them.

+ Keep cash on hand. I'm earning 5.22% with my CD at Sovereign Bank. That's about a quarter of what I'm earning in my hedge fund; it's less than half what my Vanguard index funds are doing. But it's there. It's psychologically reassuring. Of course, I can still sell my stocks and my index funds.

The Stockpickr Guide to Uranium: There is huge interest in uranium. Heads of state in Australia, France, the U.S. (Yes, George Bush) and others are talking about nuclear plants as pretty well the only solution to global warming and energy demand growth. I agree with them. We'll definitely be building more nukes. But it won't be soon. Hence most of the run-up in uranium and uranium stocks is pure speculation. James Altucher of TheStreet.com wrote a piece he called The Stockpickr Guide to Uranium:

The uranium market has been on fire over the past year. The spot price has risen from $20 to $113 since 2004. And now, with uranium futures available to trade on the Nymex starting today (that was yesterday), the speculators will join in, as well as the uranium producers who are looking to hedge. It's important to take a look at the stocks that might be affected, and how.

On the April 13 broadcast of CNBC's "Mad Money," Jim Cramer said there are two plays that can take advantage of the fact that Wall Street had not yet priced in uranium's cost at over $100, and the expense of producing it at $50 per pound if you extract it from phosphate. Check them out at Cramer's Stealthy Uranium Plays.

Of the two, Cramer said he likes Mosaic Company (MOS) better than CF Industries Holdings.(CF). "Mosaic is the largest producer of phosphate on earth," Cramer said. "Mosaic has got the phosphate, and phosphate has got the uranium."

On the down side, Barron's on April 17 wrote about how supply disruptions and dwindling inventories have severely hurt companies like Exelon (EXC), which have to purchase uranium.

"Operators in regulated electricity markets probably will be allowed to recover the higher costs of uranium via higher rates for customers," Barron's wrote. "But nuclear operators in competitive markets, like Exelon, Entergy (ETR), FPL Group (FPL) and Dominion Resources (D) will see higher fuel costs deplete profit margins."

Another popular play which Altucher didn't mention is Uranium Resources (URRE). It's up handsomely in the last few months.

The BIG uranium madness has gone on in Australia, which, I believe, has more of the stuff than any other country in the world. Uranium madness continues there. As a reflection, here's a list of Australian resources companies that are coming up for public listing. Australians called them "floats." We call them IPOs. It's an amazing collection. Some of the names are priceless.

I got this chart from the Australian Securities Exchange. They have good information on Australian stocks. More on Australian uranium stocks tomorrow.

Favorite Australian mining stocks are flying: These are the ones I own: BHP, Rio Tinto (RIO), Kagara Zinc (KZL), Zinifex (ZFX), Minara Resources (MRE), Oxiana (OXR), Apex Minerals (AXM) and Western Areas (WSA). Australian stocks will do even better between now and June 30 as Australians dump more money into the stockmarket -- because of their tax loophole. (I've written about this before.)

Dealing with subcontractors: Everything custom I've tried to buy recently has arrived or been completed late -- months late. To wit : A skylight company took my 50% deposit in November, 2006, but still needs another month. Our roofer is 18 month late. I kid you not. Etc. etc.

The problem is simple: Everyone is taking on too much work because they're read all the reports that the economy is slowing. Everyone is fearful that there won't be any work tomorrow.

If you can get a penalty clause for being late, do it now before you sign any new contracts.

Apple and Hewlett Packard do well: I had recommended Apple when it was $86. It's now $103.92 and climbing strongly, but will go higher. Now comes word from ComputerWorld magazine:

May 08, 2007 (Computerworld) -- The portion of people surfing the Web using a Mac has doubled in the past eight months, an Internet metrics analyst said today, and represents an audience that can't be ignored by Web application developers.

"The amazing story since last summer has been how well the Mac is doing," said Geoff Johnston, an analyst at WebSideStory Inc. in San Diego. "For the longest time, Mac hung around 3% of the operating systems using the Web. But it picked up around last summer, and has nearly doubled its market share."

Measurements from WebSideStory and rival Net Applications of Aliso Viejo, Calif., put Apple Inc.'s Mac OS X at close to or just over 6% of all machines in the U.S. that connected to the Web last month.

"For the first time since 1999, when we started tracking, the Mac has really made a major push," said Johnston. Since August, the percentage of online Macs running Apple's operating system has climbed from the long-flat 3% to 5.6%, he said. Net Applications data, which splits the Mac's share between computers running the PowerPC version of Mac OS and those with an Intel edition of the operating system, pegged the total share at 6.2% for April.

"Mac has almost doubled," Johnston said, "so you know they're selling a butt load." (I think he means boat load.)

Save Your Life: Last Saturday, my son, Michael took an all day adult CPR, AED (Automated External Defibrillator), and first aid course from the New York Chapter of the American Red Cross. He's guest columnist today. He had two reactions:

+ Everyone must take this course (including me and his mother)

+ We should install AEDs (automatic external defibrillators) in both of our houses, but especially our remote country home in upstate New York.

1. Take This Course: The Red Cross’s Adult CPR and First Aid course teaches how to handle both every day accidents (cuts, broken bones, insect bites) and serious life-threatening emergencies (car accidents, heart attacks, electrocutions). While common sense may seem to be enough for most of these situations, much of what Michael learned specifically debunked widespread misconceptions that can cause greater injury and/or death to both the victim and the rescuer. In addition, learning how to properly conduct CPR and the Heimlich maneuver can genuinely save someone’s life. Better yet, it can save you from feeling powerless and unprepared when confronted with an emergency.

2. AEDs Make Serious Sense: According to the Red Cross, the national resuscitation rate for people who have suffered a cardiac event (such as a heart attack) and received CPR is a measly 2%-4% if they are not reached my emergency personnel within 10 minutes. Contrary to popular belief, CPR alone will not save someone’s life. It will only prolong the time before brain damage and death occur. Having access to an AED in those initial 10 minutes dramatically boost one’s chances of survival to 40%-50%.

AEDs work just like the fancy devices that emergency personnel carry, only they are idiot-proof. Attach two soft adhesive panels to the victim’s chest, plug in the wires, stand back (this is key), and turn on the device. The machine will automatically analyze the victim’s heart activity and, if appropriate, delivery a series of shocks to get heart back in rhythm. Everyone has seen a dramatization of this on ER or other hospital television shows.

Michael’s Red Cross instructor as well as numerous websites recommend the Philip’s Home Heart Start Defibrillator. It isn’t cheap - about $1,150 from Amazon – but seems like a good investment to me. This is especially true when the expected emergency response time to a location is greater than 10 minutes (as is the case in our country house). Remember, heart disease and heart-related problems are the number one killer of both men and women in America. Even if your family isn’t at high risk (i.e. you exercise, don’t smoke, eat decently), I bet you have friends and family who are. Citibank has conveniently installed AEDs in all of its bank branches in New York City. Other businesses are following suit.

For more information on Red Cross courses and AEDs, visit the follow websites.

American Red Cross: ; Red Cross’s AED site: and Philip’s Home Heart Start Defibrillator: Ask for the promotional packet and watch the video.

In fact, I recently found another great product from them (this is Michael talking), but I cannot talk about it yet – it’s a Mother’s Day surprise. Reports on the product and my mother's reaction on Monday. Keep your fingers-crossed.

Philip’s stock has done OK recently: [DAD – ENTER INFO HERE].

Earnings are up, though sales are down.

Philips earnings are suffering from price competition in flat panel LCDs. It seems to be an increasingly well-run broad end-product (largely consumer) electronics company. P/E is high. And Michael's favorite Philips products are but a tiny niche of the overall sales of $37 billion a year. Numbers are from The Wall Street Journal's online site.

I admit a failing. I love ballet dancers: This is Aesha Ash is a member of Alonzo King’s Lines Ballet, a San Francisco company. She was in the corps of New York City Ballet but left in 2003, sadly. I have never seen her dance, but I will. Look at grace, style and beauty in this photo. She's gotta be incredible.

The problem with being a tree hugger.
A woman from Los Angeles , who was a tree hugger and an anti-hunter, purchased a piece of timberland, near Grants Pass, OR. There was a large tree on one of the highest points in the tract. She wanted a good view of the natural splendor of her land so she started to climb the big tree. As she neared the top she encountered a spotted owl that attacked her. In her haste to escape, the woman slid down the tree to the ground and got many splinters in her crotch.

In considerable pain, she hurried to the nearest doctor. She told him she was an environmentalist and an anti-hunter and how she came to get all the splinters. The doctor listened to her story with great patience and then told her to go into the examining room and he would see if he could help her. She sat and waited three hours before the doctor reappeared. The angry woman demanded, "What took you so long?"

He smiled and then told her, "Well, I had to get permits from the Environmental Protection Agency, the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management before I could remove old-growth timber from a recreational area.

I'm sorry, but they turned me down."

Getting to heaven
I was testing the children in my Sunday school class to see if they understood the concept of getting to heaven. I asked them, "If I sold my house and my car, had a big garage sale, and gave all my money to the church, would that get me into Heaven?"

"NO!" the children answered.

"If I cleaned the church every day, mowed the yard, and kept everything neat and tidy, would that get me into Heaven?"

Again, the answer was, "NO!"

By now I was starting to smile. Hey, this was fun!

"Well, then, if I was kind to animals and gave candy to all the children, and loved my husband, would that get me into Heaven?"
I asked them again.

Again, they all answered, "NO!"

I was just bursting with pride for them. Well, I continued, "then how can I get into Heaven?"

A five-year-old boy shouted out, "YOU GOTTA BE DEAD."

This column is about my personal search for the perfect investment. I don't give investment advice. For that you have to be registered with regulatory authorities, which I am not. I am a reporter and an investor. I make my daily column -- Monday through Friday -- freely available for three reasons: Writing is good for sorting things out in my brain. Second, the column is research for a book I'm writing called "In Search of the Perfect Investment." Third, I encourage my readers to send me their ideas, concerns and experiences. That way we can all learn together. My email address is . You can't click on my email address. You have to re-type it . This protects me from software scanning the Internet for email addresses to spam. I have no role in choosing the Google ads. Thus I cannot endorse any, though some look mighty interesting. If you click on a link, Google may send me money. Please note I'm not suggesting you do. That money, if there is any, may help pay Claire's law school tuition. Read more about Google AdSense, click here and here.
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